


Love, that exempts no one beloved from loving

by vogue91



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Break Up, Canonical Character Death, M/M, Ministry of Magic, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-23
Updated: 2018-02-23
Packaged: 2019-03-23 02:08:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13777452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vogue91/pseuds/vogue91
Summary: “Nymphadora feels something for me, and we both know that. I’m not willing to let suffer yet another person who tries to love me.” Sirius had hit violently the table dividing the, angry.“But you’re willing to let me suffer, aren’t you?"





	Love, that exempts no one beloved from loving

Tiredness. An immense tiredness, it was all Remus was able to feel.

The battle was around the corner, and he couldn’t focus his mind on anything but the weights he bore on his conscience.

His thoughts were cradled by Dora’s heavy and irregular breath, coming from the other room, as to emphasize the guilt he felt since almost three years.

The guilt of having confused affection with love, to have deprived himself of happiness, to hat let the common sense win over what he truly felt.

 

_“Don’t worry, Remus. Duly noted.”_

_Anyone else would’ve thought Sirius was trying to be diplomatic, but he didn’t. He knew perfectly that the man was trying to leverage on common psychology to take Remus where he wanted him. At, usually, it worked._

_Not that time._

_“Sirius, don’t be a child. How longer can we go on like this, hiding like criminals? It’s not good for me and it’s not good for you either, don’t think I don’t know that. Can’t you see it makes absolutely no sense?” he had told him, his voice broken. Those words were taking a far larger toll than he was willing to admit, but he wouldn’t have allowed himself to waver and then go back to that vicious circle that was his love for the Animagus._

_Sirius had shaken his head._

_“I’m all too good at hiding, as if I was a criminal. It’s what I’ve been doing since I’ve escaped, it’s what I’m destined to do until all the stains will have disappeared from my name. And the only thing, the only one allowing me to get out of bed every morning, is having you. How can_ you _not understand that?” he had replied, bitterly._

_“Nymphadora feels something for me, and we both know that. I’m not willing to let suffer yet another person who tries to love me.” Sirius had hit violently the table dividing the, angry._

_“But you’re willing to let me suffer, aren’t you? Because I don’t matter, because with me there’s no need to pretend to be someone you’re not. Because I’m just a bloody idiot who loves you too much and from too long, the one who knows everything about you, every habit and every thought. I can stay still and waiting for you eternally, caged in this bloody house, while all those around me have a chance to run away!” he had ironized, without masking the truth beneath his words._

_Remus had sighed. He hadn’t replied, so the other went on._

_“Can you hear me, Remus? Would you ever have thought I could’ve come to this point, to deny myself for you?” he took a deep breath. “I remember the looks of our classmates, I remember the voices, the admired faces because they thought I was a God. Because I never stopped, Remus, not a useless story, not a moment wasted on feelings I didn’t think I could ever have. And if they were to see me now, what would they say? If they knew that I’m the one who’s humiliating himself for the love of another man, who’s baring himself, who’s fighting for something that used to deem so useless?” he seemed to be out of breath, and for Remus it was like a stab at the very centre of his heart. He stopped him, incapable of listening to him any longer._

_“Sirius, I love you, and you know that. But you also know that this was okay when we were just boys. We’re men now, and we’ve got to erase that question mark towering on all of our futures.” Remus wasn’t the one doing the talk, instead a cold brain made of metal, of logic and gears._

_A coldness that didn’t belong to him, but that he deemed necessary._

Sirius had never given up, but he had stopped protesting.

He had understood how useless that farce was. And Remus had to start pretending that everything was alright, that he didn’t miss him, that his heart had merely Nymphadora’s name engraved on.

_“Stay.” he had whispered to Sirius, the voice of whom already knows he’s not going to be heard. The other man, in fact, had shaken his head._

_“Harry is the only thing I have left, Remus.” had been his answer, dry and that clearly didn’t admit any reply. The werewolf was sure, in that phrase there was a veiled accusation to him, for having left him without a thing to fight for, except for that suicidal mission in the attempt of saving his godson, who was the family of which Remus wasn’t a part of anymore._

_“We’re going to protect him, Sirius. We won’t let anything happen to him.” he had reassured him, in vain._

_“I fight for the people I love. And now I’m going to fight so that nobody is going to dare to touch Harry.” a sigh broke his venomous words. “I know you think it’s crazy, but it doesn’t matter. I know what my role is, and I’m willing to kill myself, even just for the love I feel for him.” accusations, accusations, accusations._

_Accusations for a man who wasn’t worthy of the name, accusation for a man who couldn’t kill himself for love, and who wasn’t even capable of winning his qualms and going beyond self-imposed limitation for what he deemed important._

_Sirius was quiet, but Remus was aware that inside his head he was screaming ‘coward’ at him._

_At the Ministry, while confusion reigned, he found Sirius behind him._

_He cast curses with a rage that Remus had never seen in him, he fought with the same ferocity of the Death Eaters._

_But most of all, he had to realize with horror, he fought like he had nothing to lose._

_He had just sent one of them on the other side of the room when he noticed Remus. He smiled, malicious and frustrated together, and shook his head._

_“I know it’s worth to kill myself for love, Remus. One just need to realize who is he doing it for.” had been the last words he had told him, before turning to face his cousin._

Sirius had never been good with words, and Remus felt the enormous want to not understand what he had said.

Yet after his death, truth hit him with an unheard brutality.

It wasn’t about Harry, of course it wasn’t.

Sirius Black, the man he loved, that night was at the Ministry to show him how it was possible to die for love.

He had died for Remus, without any apparent justification except wanting to go before his eyes, for his face to remain permanently impressed on Remus’ mind.

And now keeping on breathing, keeping on sleeping next to Nymphadora, night after night, seemed sacrilegious in regards to Sirius’ own existence.

Sirius never stopped, no useless story.

No shown emotions, no tangible feeling.

And yet in him was alive a desire to love, that desire that Remus had let slip through his finger for fear of showing to the world that a monster can as well feel the same turmoil that belong to human beings capable of loving.

Remus was the reflecting one, Sirius the passionate.

And if he had died out of passion, the werewolf for reflectivity kept on torturing himself.

Nymphadora’s breath became lighter all of a sudden, giving him a chance to close his eyes and letting go to a much desired rest.

His last thought, as usual, went to that face that violently invaded his mind.

A friend, a lover, a family, a shoulder to cry on.

It was Sirius, who kept living inside of him, burning like the blood in his veins.

Of Remus Lupin, was left but a shadow, lacking a body to make him real.


End file.
